nParticle Instancing Problem

[3Dstudent2019]

I've created two meshes. I have created two nparticle systems, one for each mesh. I've frozen transformations and deleted history on all. I've frozen transformation and deleted history and zeroed out to grid on all geometry to be instanced. No matter what I try, both sets of instances appear in mesh one, but no instance appears in mesh two.

The emitter is designated as surface, conserve is set to zero, ignore solver gravity is on for both systems.

Particles do appear in both meshes, and I am able to control size and color and distribution variables of both particle systems. It's simply the instances that are creating the problem.

Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this?

[mspeer]

Hi!

What Maya version are you using?

Please provide a Maya scene-file and a screenshot showing the issue.

[3Dstudent2019]

The scene I'm trying to fix is about 80MB, so I recreated a smaller scene that is netting the same result. In order to prove that instancing is the only issue, I changed the size, color, and rate, of the particles.

@mspeer 

[3Dstudent2019]

I'm getting the same result with Maya 2022 and 2023. I'm also getting the same result when using legacy particles.

[3Dstudent2019]

I should mention I'm using a Mac running OS X 11.6.1

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

Both instancer nodes are assigned to nParticle1 and none to nParticle2, so it shows correct as set up in the scene.

If you want to use instances for nParticle2 too, please connect an instancer node to nParticle2.

I removed the particle objects from the instancer nodes , they are not needed here.

You can manually connect the second instancer node to nParticleShape2, or when creating new instancer nodes, please make sure the second particle object is selected, then it looks like this:

[3Dstudent2019]

I believe your answer is accurate, but there is one thing that puzzles me, or perhaps I was doing this wrong...

Select mesh, in this case either the cube or the torus, then holding down the command key, select the particle, then go to nParticle menu and invoke an instances. Am I getting this wrong? Because that is exactly how I built the file I sent you. One geo/mesh for particle 1, and the other geo/mesh for particle 2.

@mspeer 

[3Dstudent2019 · Accepted solution]

I am such a dunce!!! I just reworked the process and found that you have to select the particle from the drop down box in the instances menu. Thank you very much for the help, it nudged me enough to find my error.

@mspeer